Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow

by Juliet Grey

  • • •

  TO: THE GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY FROM JOSEPH II, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR: CONFIDENTIAL

  Paris, May 2, 1777

  My Dear Leopold:

  I have now had the opportunity to spend a good deal of time with our sister and the King of France. He is honest and not devoid of knowledge, but he is badly educated, as well as incurious, and the ministers are the masters, making it all the more necessary for the queen to come into her own, and quickly, for Louis is a man too easily led by the nose.

  Yet the only place he cannot be led, it seems, is the bedchamber. Physically, he is a strong man, sturdily built, and he looks perfectly capable of fathering a child. Yet he barely seems to know how to go about it! I spoke with him privately and entirely candidly, and he confided that he has very firm erections, but then after he introduces the member he stays there without moving for perhaps two full minutes and withdraws without having ejaculated, although he is still erect. Then he kisses the queen good night.

  I find the entire business incomprehensible. He says he sometimes has nightly emissions, but never during the act itself; and he says quite plainly that he does it purely from a sense of duty—that he derives no pleasure whatever from it. To think that there has been no Bourbon heir due to such laziness and apathy. Oh—if only once I could have been there! I would have whipped him until he grew so enraged that he spent like a donkey! Our sister has little temperament; if she were by nature a romantic or a sensualist she might make his task easier, but together they are two complete blunderers.

  Their situation is very odd. The king is at present only two-thirds of a husband. He loves our sister, I can see it. Yet he fears her more. She has the kind of power one expects from a maîtresse en titre, not a wife, as she compels him to do things he doesn’t want to do. Her virtue remains strictly intact; however, she acts as if she gives no thought to next week, let alone the future.

  Joseph’s departure from France at the end of the first week in June left an aching void that I could not seem to fill, the seven weeks he’d spent with us gone so quickly that it seemed little more than a gauzy dream. My usual round of amusements no longer brought me delight. True, he had employed a good number of our hours together lecturing me on how to be a more amiable wife and a more respected queen, and I was hardly nostalgic for these scoldings.

  “What can you be thinking of, to interfere in public affairs, to dismiss ministers and appoint others in their place?” my brother had demanded to know. “Or to create new and costly posts at court when the king is endeavoring to economize?” The comtesse de Polignac had made recommendations (naturally the persons in question were her friends or relations) and I had forwarded them, thinking they were sound. Yet Louis had not questioned them at the time; indeed, he had always encouraged my friendship with Madame de Polignac.

  “Have you ever troubled to ask yourself what right you have to intervene in the business of the French monarchy?” Joseph said. His words made me shiver. “Small wonder, then, that the king is afraid of you. And that the caricaturists cannot fill their nibs with ink fast enough.”

  I briefly lowered my gaze. My cheeks burned. My brother was right, of course. I hadn’t at all considered the possibility that my husband had acquiesced to the Polignac promotions out of fear, for I certainly did not see myself as formidable or threatening in any way. Whatever was there about me that Louis could be frightened of? I only wished to help my friends. If someone was not qualified, surely the king would have told me so.

  But I could not admit to my brother what I had surmised for the past two years at least—that Louis had altered his original policy against my “intervening,” as Joseph put it, gratifying my wish to feel useful, as our childless state left me on the periphery as his consort. My husband understood that I would not seek an active role in the affairs of state if my hours were occupied with the joys of motherhood; and so I believe he became determined to indulge me in other ways.

  Resentful at Joseph’s presumption, despite my affection for him, and perhaps because his words had hit the mark too well, “I do not wish to appear managed,” I said smoothly, promising at the same time to reform my behavior after his departure.

  He was not convinced. Seated beside me in the solitude of le Petit Trianon, on a couch upholstered in pale green silk, he took my hands in his and looked deeply into my eyes. “My dear, sweet, charming sister, reflect before you act, for every little thing has consequences.” He brought my fingers to his lips. “Listen to a brother who loves you and who has only your welfare at heart.” His voice was quiet, but firm. “All your beauty and charm is worth nothing if you continue to dance toward an abyss, spurred on by the gossip and backbiting of those you choose to account your companions. In truth, ma petite soeur, I tremble for your happiness, seeing that in the long run things cannot go on as they are.” He sounded almost regretful. “The revolution will be a cruel one, and perhaps of your own making.”

  THIRTEEN

  A True Wife at Last

  Joseph had been customarily blunt to Louis as well, but his words had their desired effect. A few weeks after my brother’s departure, when we entertained the king’s maiden aunts, Mesdames Adélaïde, Victoire, and Sophie, bitter crows who had retired from court to the Château de Bellevue on our ascension, my husband made sure to demonstrate to them that he was hardly indifferent toward his queen.

  Feasting on strawberries and cream in the Bois de Boulogne that afternoon, Mesdames and I were surprised to see the king canter over, dressed for the hunt, with a half-dozen outriders trailing behind. He pulled up his horse and dismounted, handing the reins to a groom. Removing his hat and blotting the perspiration from his brow, he surveyed the four of us in our candy-colored gowns with their furbelowed skirts and ruched bodices, our pale décolletée protected by matching silk parasols.

  “How splendid you look!” he exclaimed. “Monsieur Fragonard should paint you just as you are.” He took my hands and swung me to my feet as if I weighed nothing, then clasped me about the waist and drew me to him, kissing me fully on the mouth. His lips were soft and tasted slightly of salt from his equestrian exertions. Later in the day, and for hours afterwards, I rustled through my memories: Had he ever before kissed me like that? It was surely not for show because I was in the presence of Mesdames—who, I had learned long after the fact, mistrusted the Austrians, like so many of the French nobility, and had been against our marriage from the beginning. Louis’s embrace was born out of pure spontaneity. This rare gesture at Versailles, this tender expression of affection among the sovereigns, won an unexpected reaction, for Mesdames, our footmen, and his grooms and outriders all applauded us!

  Joseph had chided me for not showing affection toward my husband, and I had tried to become more aware of demonstrating my esteem for him, not only in public, but in the bedchamber, although I don’t believe my brother comprehended how agonizing even the gentlest expressions of tenderness could be. Had Louis confided the specifics of his medical condition, according to the diagnosis of Monsieur Lassone?

  Once again I raised the prospect of circumcision. I was reliably informed by those with a good deal of experience that the procedure would make the business of lovemaking more enjoyable for my husband. And in Louis’s case, his phimosis was not correcting itself over time, with repeated attempts, however painful, at intercourse, as one of the court physicians had advised. So finally, although he remained loath to consider the possibility of infection, or worse, and the unthinkable likelihood of leaving me a widow and France at the mercy of his brother, Louis capitulated.

  Yet the operation was to be performed entirely in secret. Monsieur’s coterie of schemers could not be permitted the opportunity to stir the pot of dissension and plot against the king, netting allies like flypaper, should he perish from the procedure.

  The procedure was effected in the dead of night in my small single bed at le Petit Trianon, amid a soothing palette of robin’s-egg blue, rose, celadon, and ivory. Nowhere else at Ver
sailles could such privacy be obtained. Rules governing entry were posted at various points about the acreage: THE QUEEN FORBIDS THAT HER GARDEN BE DEEMED A PUBLIC PLACE, ALLOWS ENTRANCE ONLY BY THE GATE AND UNDER THE ESCORT OF A SWISS GUARD; SHE FORBIDS PERSONS ATTACHED TO THE SERVICE OF TRIANON TO BRING THEIR FAMILIES OR FRIENDS ONTO THE GROUNDS ON THE DAYS WHEN SHE DINES THERE ALONE OR WITH THE ROYAL FAMILY; EVEN IN HER ABSENCE SUCH PERSONS MUST BE ACCOMPANIED.

  The most illustrious trespasser thus far had been the Grand Almoner. On the night we fêted Grand Duke Paul of Russia, His Arrogance, prince de Rohan, had connived his way into the gardens, which had been illuminated with lanterns cleverly concealed within flowerpots. He had lied to my gatekeeper, and the hapless concierge had admitted him to the grounds; the princesse de Lamballe alerted me to the cardinal-prince’s presence when she glimpsed the hem of his red moiré soutane peeking out from beneath his voluminous black domino cloak. I was livid, for the cardinal was the last person I would have wished to entertain. Not only had he not been invited to the Grand Duke’s soirée, but the prince de Rohan never had been, and never would be, my guest at le Petit Trianon, or anywhere else where it lay within my power to exclude him. I debated whether to permit the cardinal to remain; but countenancing any breach of the rules of Trianon, and of my privacy and security, would set a dangerous precedent, so I had my Swiss Guards discreetly escort him from the gardens.

  Ordinarily quite abstemious, Louis consumed a fair amount of brandy to calm his nerves and blunt the inevitable pain of the surgical procedure. Yet when he undressed and Monsieur Lassone examined him for the final time, to our immense relief the physician found that nothing quite so radical as a complete circumcision would be necessary after all.

  Having first made sure that both the lancet and the médecin’s hands were scrubbed with hot water and strong Castille soap, I held the candle as he made a few small traverse incisions, in order to loosen the fibers of the prepuce of Louis’s pénis. I peered over Monsieur Lassone’s shoulder, careful not to obscure the light as he explained how the deformity manifested itself. Maman, I thought, would have been proud of me, for I never so much as flinched. “You see, Votre Majesté, how the prepuce was forming a corona about the head of the king’s member, essentially strangling it. This abnormal, tight skin was preventing His Majesty from obtaining an erection without enduring extreme discomfort.” In no time at all, the doctor had pronounced the loosening accomplished, and he began to apply an ointment concocted of wine and olive oil between Louis’s glans and prepuce. “Is that all?” my husband remarked, shocked at how quickly, and with such minimal fuss, the greatest burden of his life had been dispensed with. Even the pain, he admitted, though he had been gnawing on the heel of a stale crust of bread, was not as fearsome as he had imagined it would be.

  Monsieur Lassone drew my attention to the ointment. “In a few days’ time, if you continue to apply this baume samaritain as I am doing, you will see that the scabs will heal rather swiftly and you and the king may resume all of your normal activities.”

  The royal physician was as good as his word. And on August 22, 1777, nearly seven and a quarter years from the day we knelt at the altar together in the chapel at Versailles, the King of France—finalement—made me his true wife.

  Although our initial efforts as he filled me completely—to the hilt of his sword, he proudly proclaimed—were quite painful for both of us, I gasped in surprise at how elastic mon vagin became as we persevered. I wished to show Louis I loved him, so to feel closer, I wrapped my legs around his bottom, only to discover that the position rendered our exertions considerably more comfortable. This enabled me to relax and when I felt more at ease, the king grew more confident and thus we could finally perform our marital duty.

  I can only describe it as unqualified ebullience when at long last Louis and I relieved ourselves of the burden of celibacy. The joy and elation of consummation at long last triumphed, trumping every other sentiment and sensation. Louis was so thrilled, relief etched so visibly in his full cheeks and light eyes that he was eager to repeat the deed for several days running, and even gushed with delight to Mesdames, themselves uninitiated in the great mystery, exclaiming that he could curse himself for having denied his body such transcendent enjoyment for so long.

  The court was abuzz with excitement, and when many of the courtiers felt robbed of one of their favorite topics of gossip and derision, I became doubly delighted. Monsieur and Madame sourly congratulated us. I was almost positive that they still had never consummated their nuptials, despite Monsieur’s frequent boasts of prowess; certainly they had nothing to show for it. “You are catching up, perhaps,” simpered the comtesse d’Artois, already twice a mother, and with her belly swelling again. I knew Joseph had written home to Vienna that he found her useless for anything except making babies. But even my prolifically fecund belle-soeur could not dampen my euphoria. On August 30, I wrote to Maman with the good news:

  I am in the most essential happiness of my entire life. It is more than eight days now since my marriage was thoroughly consummated, and the proof has been repeated daily. At first I thought of sending my dear maman a courier, but I feared that it would be such an event that it would cause talk. As it is, nothing remains a secret here for long. I will also admit that I wanted to be quite sure. I do not think I am pregnant yet, but at least I now have that possibility from one moment to the next. How happy my dear maman will be now. May I kiss her with all my heart?

  But, hélas, not ten days after I had become “fully a woman,” as my sister Charlotte would have said, my husband’s passion for our newfound marital intimacy waned almost entirely, the way a young child loses interest in a once-favorite toy. I was crushed and when I sorrowfully confronted Louis to ask what had happened to cause so great a change, he could only blush and shrug. He returned to his old ways—long days at the hunt or the forge, conferring with his ministers without including me, and overindulging at meals, surfeiting himself on sweets and sauces.

  So I quickly resumed my former routine as well, dancing and gaming until the wee hours, almost afraid to retire for the night, my great bed of state the scene of so much distress that I avoided it for as many hours as possible.

  On September 10, I wrote to my mother again, shading the truth about the king’s nocturnal visits because I did not want her to know that by the time I finally turned in, he had been aslumber in his own suite for hours. At one point I believed our humiliation to be at an end, and the need for his company obviated, referring to my monthly courses with the sobriquet we Hapsburg women had employed during my childhood. I was unfortunately disappointed—not by my husband, but by my own body:

  The birth of a son to the Queen of Naples has pleased me more than I can say. Is it true that Charlotte will have a seat on the Council of State now that she has borne an heir? I love my sister with all my heart but I confess that I rejoice all the more about her newborn baby because I hope soon to have the same happiness myself. I had a moment in which I hoped I was pregnant but Générale Krottendorf has never visited me with any regularity.

  Although the king occasionally spends the night with me, he does not like to sleep in my bed. I have encouraged him not to proceed to a complete separation, especially as we have finally done what we must, yet I do not feel it would be proper to insist that he visit me more often, as he does come to see me every morning in my private study. His friendship and his love grow every day.

  I send you many kisses.

  Your devoted Antoinette

  • • •

  October 17, 1777

  Your Imperial Majesty:

  It pains me to relay the unsettling news that the comtesse de Polignac and another of Antoinette’s Trianon cercle, the duc de Coigny, are becoming more favored than ever, with the most deplorable results. The pair of them perpetually wrench favors from the generous queen, giving rise to numerous, and vociferous, complaints from the public. The protégés of the duc are awarded all the financial offices and
the comtesse’s creatures are given monetary gifts, sums taken from those who have a right to expect it. It is almost unexampled that in so short a time the royal favor should have brought such overwhelming advantages to a single family; I speak of course of the Polignacs. The queen uses no judgment in these matters and no minister dares resist her desires. As the king cannot make her happy where it signifies most, to the detriment of the nation he feels he cannot deny her.

  Your humble servant,

  Mercy

  • • •

  My dear Mercy:

  As long as she is pressing her advantage with the king and yielding results—whatever the reason for her success—she should be employing this influence to further the interests of her homeland. We will have to be content with what can be obtained by remonstrating with her.

  Maria Theresa

  Nothing could have upset me more greatly during the ensuing months than the pressure from my mother to convince Louis and his ministers to support Joseph’s unethical seizure of Bavaria. The German duchy’s old Elector died at the end of December 1777; rather than support the installation of his heir as the new Elector Palatine in return for a third of the Bavarian territory, my brother Joseph behaved as heinously as Frederick of Prussia had done many years earlier when he took Silesia from Austria. He simply marched his troops into Bavaria and seized the entire duchy.

  During those crucial weeks when I should have been capitalizing, as Maman might have put it, on our genuine intimacy in the bedchamber, wooing my husband with patience and caresses, I was being thoroughly schooled by the comte de Mercy in the political ramifications of Joseph’s actions so that I could assert Austria’s position whenever Louis and I were able to steal a few private moments. It was no secret that Joseph’s goals were to expand and strengthen the empire. Mercy believed that my brother’s intentions vis-à-vis the centrally located Bavaria were to use it as a bargaining chip, if necessary, with Frederick of Prussia, offering “the Devil” the Austrian Netherlands in exchange.